Adaptive Behavior Classroom (Agest 2-6 Years)
“Without OCCI, no academic curriculum has the opportunity to flourish. So, too, our Montessori classroom has its root encapsulated in a soil of OCCI to allow your child’s full potential to bloom.”
What if you are the parent who continues to see your child’s potential…and it is not coming into bloom? Will your child succeed at RLM?
A neurotypical child stepping into a Montessori therapy classroom has the executive functioning skills to create order, concentration, coordination, and independence in the 5 areas of self-directed learning listed here. However, a child who has atypical development in the areas of CLAP (coordination, language, attention, and perception) will struggle with this natural acquisition of order and self-directed learning. This is the heart of where our trained Montessori teacher/ behavior therapists step in.
Our Adaptive Behavior Classroom is structured to aid a child to transition from external reinforcements and guidance toward order, gradually toward internal and self-directed guidance toward order. The duration, frequency, and rate of prompt-fade will be different for each child, as we are passionate about creating an individualized match and expanse of each child’s current skill-set (academic, social, and emotional).
Dr. Maria Montessori created a method, a set of materials, and a philosophy of how a child learns best through the scientific process of observing and studying the child. She was a scientist and a Doctor who specialized in pediatrics and psychology. Her understanding of early childhood development, both physically and psychologically, is the reason for the brilliance and science behind the method. This method and the corresponding didactic materials were originally created for her work and studies of the exceptional child (and then later applied successfully to all children). The Montessori curriculum is over 150 years old and has passed the test of time.
At Rooted Life Montessori, we believe that merging the time tested research and efficacy of the Montessori Method with the time tested research and efficacy of behavior therapy can help each child gain confidence momentum as they enter a classroom where they can learn. We start with Adaptive Behavior:
Adaptive Behavior
Adaptive behavior is behavior that enables a person to cope in their environment with greatest success and least conflict with others. This is a term used in the areas of psychology and special education. Wikipedia
Adaptive behavior is the collection of conceptual, social, and practical skills that all people learn in order to function in their daily lives
Children in the RLM Adaptive Behavior classroom share the following characteristics:
- Cannot maintain appropriate classroom behavior with the typical ratios (6-1 Toddler, 9-1 Primary, 12-1 Elementary)
- Are “runners”, sensory sensitive, act like they “have a motor that runs”, impulsively talk or touch other children or objects
- Need prompts to increase attending to group or individual lessons
- Need improvement in fine motor skills
- Have retained primitive reflexes (and are working with OT to integrate)
- Need to increase compliance with adult directives (teachers and parents)
- Need extra practice to generalize skills across environments (home, school, therapy)
Children in the Adaptive Behavior Classroom will generally fall in the 1-2 categories on the following behavior chart, whereas the students moving into the Primary or Toddler classroom will have behaviors in the 3-4 categories.
Children in the Adaptive Behavior classroom may grow here for an entire year (or two) if they are working through intensive, comprehensive treatment (often appropriate for early intervention learners presenting with broad skill deficits and intensive problem behavior). Other children will be in the Adaptive Behavior classroom for 1-6 months if they are working through brief, focused treatment (often appropriate for advanced learners presenting with a few areas of skill deficit, or moderate problem behavior).
We view the Adaptive Behavior Classroom as a transitory pathway for students who are capable of moving forward with age appropriate social, academic, and behavioral goals, but who need these skills directly taught on a scaffolded student-teacher ratio (4-1) in order to be successful.
Parents who enroll their children in the Adaptive Behavior Classroom share the following characteristics:
- Passionate about seeing their child succeed
- Passionate about complimenting and praising their child for successful acquisition of skills
- Willing partners in learning Behavior Therapy and implementing at home
- Willing partners and participants in all parent education seminars
- Willing to advocate for their child with the required testing (vision, hearing, and OT) and the interventions, exercises, home adaptations recommended by these practitioners for healing
- Willing partners in co-teaching/ co-parenting with limits, routines and communication between parents, teachers and therapists
